FMXcellence Winners Share How to Do Big Things With Limited Resources

When Jeffrey Tetrault came on board as director of engineering at Crouse Hospital in Syracuse, N.Y., the plans for adding 14 new operating rooms to the tune of $30-plus million had already been under development for three years. On the surface, everything looked good to go. But Tetrault saw that moving forward as planned would be disastrous.

The hospital had long outgrown its infrastructure, specifically the chilled water and emergency power supply capacity. "We would not be able to do what they had been promising for the three years prior to my arriving," Tetrault says. Rather than keep his head down, Tetrault campaigned to make hospital executives understand that, however unpalatable, it was irresponsible to proceed without embarking on a concurrent and significant upgrade to the hospital's backbone in order to support the OR expansion and other upcoming needs.

Tetrault doesn't spend a lot of time wondering how things could have gone so far with such a glaring deficiency. His job was to see what was needed and what was possible. And then make it happen. This perhaps, in a nutshell, describes excellence in facilities management. It is not enough to do the job that has been done. Sometimes, you have to go off the beaten path.

This year's FMXcellence awards from Building Operating Management honored four organizations that did just that. A project that met a carbon reduction mandate years ahead of schedule and kept going. Another that recognized a broken process and made great strides to rectify it. And another that embraced the spirit embodied in the researchers it would house and used that spirit to drive innovation in every aspect of the project, not the least being project safety. As can be seen as you look at each in turn, excellence in facilities management comes in all shapes and sizes, offering applicable lessons for FMs everywhere.

What is FMXcellence?

The FMXcellence Recognition Program acknowledges FM teams that have added significant value to their organization. For more information on the program and to submit your project for consideration for the 2013 award, go to www.facilitiesnet.com/bom/fmxcellence/. For more details on this year's honorees, visit MyFacilitiesNet.